Outlaw Moon

  OUTLAW MOON

  Charlotte Hubbard

  For Wilber and Ioma—I couldn’t create two finer characters (or in-laws!) if I tried.

  And many thanks to Diana Jones for her enthusiasm and insights into my hero, Jack Rafferty!

  Chapter 1

  October, 1899

  “Cross my palm with silver, cowboy. Those big, strong hands of yours are going to tell a story like nobody’s ever heard before. I can feel it.”

  Jack Rafferty paused just inside the stuffy little tent, letting the flap drop behind him. The cry of the sideshow barkers faded, and his dog Maude sat down at his heel, as he was enveloped by a perfume almost as sultry as the palm reader who was returning his gaze with a dark, sloe-eyed intensity. Ordinarily he didn’t cotton to such fakery, but this gypsy-looking creature just might make a believer of him. For tonight, anyway.

  He approached her table slowly. The flickering light of her candle made her eyes shine, made the gold chains around her neck glimmer with promise. She was a lush, dusky beauty with her hair done up in a paisley-print scarf, except for one artfully-arranged lock that fell along the top of her cream-colored peasant blouse. The filmy fabric rose and fell with her breathing, and as Jack sat down he found his eyes riveted to two of the biggest, fullest—

  “It—it’s Madame LaBelle, isn’t it?” he stammered.

  “Yes,” she breathed, extending her hand with a fluid grace.

  Something made him ignore the hint, something wild and primal that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for far too long, and instead of paying her he snatched up her hand. “You got any pictures of yourself naked?”

  Amber’s mouth fell open. Of all the—this rake was obviously after more than pictures! His eyes glinted beneath a black hat and ebony hair that curved over his shirt collar, and that wicked mustache framed a sensual mouth that could only tell lies and get her into trouble.

  “I’ve seen your face before, mister,” she warned, “and it wasn’t on a poster for a beauty pageant, either. Now get out, before I call in the law!”

  Damn! Those Wanted posters had preceded him to Omaha, and an ominous click told Jack she was pointing a pistol at him under the table. Odd behavior for a woman who made no effort to free her other hand from his, and by God she was not going to scream and get him arrested! Rafferty sprang forward from his chair, clearing the small table as the shot rang out, knocking a shocked Miss LaBelle back into the wall of the tent.

  The flimsy canvas structure collapsed, creating the chaos he’d hoped for. Maude bolted outside and was barking while heavy footsteps hurried toward them from all directions. The pungence of gunpowder, incense, and the snuffed-out candle nearly choked him as the tent fell around them like a shroud. But all Jack cared about was stifling the woman who struggled beneath him.

  “Do what I say, and there won’t be any trouble,” he muttered. “Now turn loose of that pistol—”

  “You’re crushing me!”

  “—and we’re going to let on like this was just a little misunderstanding—”

  “I understand you perfectly,” Amber gasped, “and when Gideon and the others get here—”

  Along with Maude’s barking, Rafferty heard several men demanding if Miss LaBelle was all right as they grappled with the tangled tent poles and the folds of heavy canvas still clinging to him and his hostage. She was wriggling too provocatively to be hurt, and her cries were deafening him, and he saw only one way to walk out of this catastrophe a free man—

  Lightning struck when the stranger kissed her.

  After the initial shock wore off, however, Amber struggled anew, knowing his type from months on the road. If this presumptuous bully thought he could shut her up with that roguish mouth, well he could just ... he could just ....

  He could keep this up forever, Amber thought when his warm tongue flickered around her own. How had the savage wolf who’d jumped her suddenly become as cuddly as a pup? His long lashes fluttered against her cheek as he gently explored her mouth, so caught up in the kiss he seemed oblivious to the noise and confusion around them. His hands felt heavenly as he caressed her face and neck, and when a shrill voice piped up above the others outside, Amber decided to play along with this dangerous man. The deliciousness of her prank made her giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” Jack murmured against her scarf.

  “Your . . . your mustache. It tickles.”

  The man on top of her grinned and became stunningly handsome. “Maybe we’d better do that some more, then. I like you a lot better this way than when you’re screaming in my ear.”

  Instinctively Amber wrapped her arms around his neck and threw herself into a kiss like she’d never known. Was it Gideon Midnight’s reaction she was after? Or was the dizzying thrill of kissing a total stranger spurring her on? When the tent was thrown back and the cool night air made her shiver beneath him, Amber LaBelle only knew that somewhere in the last moment this mysterious stranger had again taken control of the situation—control of her. His lips were soft and insistent, prying secrets from her that no man had a right to know as he pressed his body into hers.

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  “Somebody grab him off—”

  “Shut that damn dog up before I—”

  Her attacker broke away to give her a deep, purposeful look and she assumed the wide-eyed, innocent expression that won her so many card games. She was thinking how wonderful it would feel to bask in his chocolate-brown gaze far into the night, until the stealthy whisper of half a dozen hammers being cocked forced her to look up at the crowd around them.

  “Please don’t shoot!” she whimpered. “This isn’t what it seems.”

  “So what is it?” Gideon rasped in his distinctive, girlish voice. His pistol, along with several others, was pointed at the stranger’s back, and he looked ready to choke on his indignation.

  Amber savored his agony as she thought about her answer. High time this blond bantam rooster got his feathers ruffled! A smile crept over her face and she ran her tongue along her lips, for better effect. “This man’s a long-lost friend, Gideon,” she purred. “I’m sorry we’ve caused such a ruckus, but when we saw each other after all these years, well—things got out of hand, that’s all. No harm done.”

  Rafferty’s eyes hadn’t left her face, and he’d just witnessed the slickest job of lying he’d ever seen. And now that she was batting those big brown eyes at that Gideon fellow, he knew she was every bit as underhanded as he was himself—maybe more so, since women could be so damn sneaky! For some reason she’d covered for him, and he knew better than to hang around long enough for holes to pop open in her story.

  “Yep,” he agreed as he eased up off her, “Miss LaBelle and I go way back. Didn’t mean to get so riled up, but sometimes I carry on.”

  “Well, you can carry yourself on to someplace else!” the lanky little man sputtered. “It’s time for the show! Amber needs to prepare for her performance!”

  Jack figured he’d already seen quite an act, but he was too intrigued to get himself kicked out of the real thing. He now recognized this blustery man—a scrawny imitation of Buffalo Bill Cody, right down to the goatee and white buckskins—as the star and manager of Gideon Midnight’s Authentic Wild West Extravaganza. His likeness dominated the handbills that littered these fairgrounds and the signs posted in nearly every town west of the Mississippi. Such an ego had to be handled carefully—especially where Miss LaBelle was concerned, he sensed. No doubt Gideon would call in the law at the least provocation, possessive as he was acting, and that was the last thing Rafferty needed.

  He offered a gallant hand to the lady who’d lied for him. As the gypsy-clad woman brushed the dust from her billowing red skirt and adjusted the neckline of her
blouse, she gasped. Ignoring the dispersing crowd, she knelt and frantically searched the ground and the folds of the collapsed tent until she grabbed two round, white pouches.

  When her eyes met his, she turned a scarlet deeper than her skirt, and it was then that Jack noticed her bustline had grown considerably smaller than when he’d entered her tent. Turning away, he coughed to keep from laughing out loud. It seemed this fortuneteller had as many secrets as he did!

  And even though he knew better than to stay around here, where someone might recognize him and gun him down to claim the price on his head, Jack wavered. He hadn’t seen a Wild West show in years— had never met anyone as cunning and exotic as Madame LaBelle here. And the loneliness of being a hunted man made him cave in.

  “See you later, after the show,” he said as he gave the little palm reader a wink.

  Then he glanced down at his black and white border collie, who was regarding him steadily with her wise brown eyes. “Come on, Maudie. Let’s find a seat in the grandstands so we don’t miss a minute of this. You’ll probably want to sign on, showoff that you are.”

  Chapter 2

  Like most traveling shows spawned by Buffalo Bill’s original Wild West, Gideon Midnight’s extravaganza was a pale imitation. But still worth every cent of the admission, Rafferty thought as he watched in awe. He vividly recalled Colonel Cody’s flair for showmanship—the open-air arena that rang with war whoops of such Indians as Sitting Bull and Rain-In-The-Face, the crack marksmanship of Annie Oakley—and his heart hammered with the same ecstatic beat as when he was a kid from Kansas City getting his first taste of live cowboys and Indians. The West was all but civilized now, so it was good to relive the life-and-death drama of a yesteryear that hadn’t been tamed by telephones or electricity. Or lawmen.

  Jack glanced around the audience, but they were too enthralled by the performance of a trick-shot artist on horseback to notice a fugitive in their midst. He scratched Maudie behind the ears and smiled at her. She was eating this up, same as he was, sitting beside him on the wooden bench, panting a little.

  The band played a faltering fanfare as the marksman raised his arms to the crowd’s cheers and cantered out of the arena. Jack clapped loudly, wondering if the horns sounded tinny or if his imagination had polished Cody’s musical accompaniment to a bright, brassy shine over the years. The uniforms were a little less than red and the performers’ costumes a bit threadbare, suggesting that Midnight’s troupe operated on a week-to-week budget of its gate receipts.

  But Rafferty clung to the illusion of grandeur, relishing his first real entertainment in months as the announcer addressed them again. “Next on our program,” he called out in a magnificent voice, “The Pageant of the American West! Return with me now to the year 1804, when an Indian squaw named Sacagawea acted as guide and interpreter for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.”

  And there she was, with her dark braid falling halfway down her buckskinned back as she led the two explorers along a backdrop painted like wilderness. Jack chuckled. Miss LaBelle had repadded her camisole, and she was no doubt the chestiest Indian in history, but she still fascinated him.

  Amber, Midnight had called her, and the name described the glow of her exotic complexion perfectly. She moved across the makeshift stage with the grace of a dancer, uttering a few phrases of broken English to liven up the short act, and then the music cued the next historical figures into place. Rafferty’s heart stood still when she spotted him and threw him a kiss before her exit.

  It was foolish to fantasize about a road show performer who could only be an evening’s encounter at best, yet again Jack was strangely willing to suspend reality. He had to stick around at least long enough to find out why she’d lied for him—and what she expected in return. And then he’d be off, he promised himself.

  The spectacle onstage moved quickly through mid-century events and the settling of the West. A canvas-covered prairie schooner lumbered into view, flanked by pioneer women in calico and bonnets, driving a few contrary cattle. When Maudie yipped and strained forward, Rafferty put his arm around her to keep her seated.

  “This is play-acting, girl, and no dog with any manners interrupts a theatrical event,” he said in a low voice. “Those ladies are doing just fine with their cows, understand?”

  Maudie licked his cheek and returned her rapt gaze to the arena, but he could tell her instincts were riding higher than her training right now. Herding stock had been her breed’s work for centuries, and it took a tightening of his hold on her to settle her fidgeting.

  The announcer was filling in some time with historical anecdotes while the crew moved a small log cabin into place so the family in the covered wagon could take up its brief residence on the imaginary Kansas plains. Then the whoops of Indians riding painted ponies filled the night air as flaming arrows ignited the small house.

  What a show it was! The savages were thundering around the beleaguered family, stealing the cattle and horses, but here came the cavalry, with a flourish of flags and the deafening retort of rifles! When the smoke cleared, the ground was littered with sprawling redskins bathed in blood—who then rose and bowed to enthusiastic applause as the arena was cleared for the next part of the pageant.

  Things went fine when Gideon Midnight, as the youthful William Cody, enacted the marvel of a Pony Express ride with admirable finesse. The outlaw attack on an authentic Overland stagecoach had the crowd holding its breath, leaning forward to watch the driver’s expert maneuvering of his clattering, horse-drawn vehicle while bandanna-masked men rode in hot pursuit. But the range wars were Maudie’s undoing.

  With cattle bawling on one side of a barbed-wire fence and sheep blathering on the other, while their respective owners hollered threats and brandished rifles, the border collie was too overwhelmed to sit still. She kicked her way out of Jack’s grasp and dashed down the aisle, until she was right in the thick of things, barking and racing around the sheep to drive them into a tight circle.

  Rafferty swore softly and was about to call her off—but the crowd loved her! They thought Maude was part of the act, and they laughed and clapped as his dog left the fleecy sheep to corral the cattle, exhibiting razor-sharp turns and the evil-eye stare she used to stop a straying animal in its tracks. Even the feuding ranchers encouraged her, and as his prized pet went from the herd to the flock again with lightning speed and sharp, warning barks, his heart swelled. God, how he missed those months working sheep on the Colorado pasturelands, where this loyal dog was his only friend.

  But that was behind him, a brief respite from constantly looking over his shoulder. He was on the move again, slipping along the fringes of civilization, because a crime of passion on a hot night in Dodge had stabbed his future in the heart. Out of habit, he glanced around and decided to wait for Maudie outside, so she wouldn’t draw attention to him when she left the arena.

  Gideon Midnight’s show traveled by train, and as Rafferty leaned back against one of the brightly-painted boxcars to roll a smoke, that perennial itch to get going ruined his enjoyment of the clear October night. The star-speckled sky stretched endlessly above the fairgrounds, a serene contrast to the clutter of tents and booths where sword-swallowers, jugglers, and snake charmers plied their trades.

  He should listen to his instincts. He should be gone before Amber LaBelle coaxed him into something he’d regret—wasn’t that what women did best? Maudie came bounding out of the tent, looking terribly proud of herself, and as soon as the show let out she’d have a crowd around her if he didn’t get moving. The dog couldn’t help being friendly. She just took to people and loved to display her skills.

  “Let’s get out of here, girl,” he muttered with mock gruffness. There was no reprimanding her when she wagged her tail and grinned at him that way, so he ground out his smoke with his bootheel and started toward the hitching rails at the edge of the grounds. “Feel better, now that you’ve showed off? We miss those woollybacks, don’t we?”

  They hadn’t w
alked ten feet when a reedy voice hailed them from behind. “You there! You dang well better turn tail—and take your mangy mutt with you! I won’t tolerate such interruptions of my show.”

  Rafferty knew without looking that it was Gideon Midnight, a pipsqueak not worth the air it took to argue with. But calling his dog names was another matter! He turned slowly and saw that the pint-sized proprietor was stalking toward him, apparently to escort him to his horse. So Jack decided he wasn’t ready to leave after all.

  The band struck up a rousing tune, and muted applause reached them as he waited for Midnight to catch up. Quite the dandy he was, decked out in white leggings and boots, a white fringed jacket, and a flamboyant white Stetson with a rhinestone hatband. His thin blond hair fanned out in the breeze as he strode closer, and Rafferty could see he was stirred up enough to be nipping the ends of his straw-colored mustache.

  Jack crossed his arms and stood with his feet slightly apart.

  Midnight stopped a few paces away, assessing him with anxious blue eyes. “Well? What’s keeping you?”

  That high-pitched whine could grate on a man, Rafferty thought as he continued to gaze down at his accuser. “Don’t ever call my dog a mutt again, understand?”

  “I don’t intend to, because you’re leaving!”

  “Am I?” An ornery streak raced through him, and he cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe Amber invited me to stay. Maybe we’ve got memories to rehash—and she’ll probably ask me to stick around awhile. We were good together, Midnight.”

  The little blond bristled. “You no-good, lying, son-of-a-”

  “Did Amber say those things about me? She’s right, you know—and those are my better qualities,” he added with a breezy chuckle. Then he stiffened and grabbed the man’s leather lapels. “So don’t go messing with me, pipsqueak. And don’t ever insult Maudie again, understand?”